my life is (too) sweet

There have been a number of sweet things in my life of late. Too many sweet things in fact which made it hard to refrain from tasting, savouring and tasting again....sigh... (guess what my New Year resolution action might be??). Yes last year was not a sugar free year for me although it was a lite-sugar version! Miss Bliss, 14, has discovered cake making and decorating as well as photo styling which, paired with Instagram have become a full time hobby! But we have had some delicious treats and a few very fancy birthday cakes! 

That cheery red poppy and pansy creation above, was a simple chocolate cake topped with whipped cream, 'wild' flowers from our very overgrown garden and some crumbled frozen raspberries. It looked smashing for a 19th birthday cake in November! 

Then came Chocolate Mint Power Balls and Raspberry Bliss Balls. Now these were naturally sweetened with medjool dates and other nutritious ingredients and I did manage to try one of each before they were inhaled by various loved ones who always seem to be visiting when there's something yummy to be had! And they were delicious!

This lovely pink confection was my birthday cake in December - a lemon butter cake with pink frosting and fresh roses. All I wanted for my birthday was a big bunch of homegrown roses (which were obligingly obtained from the park by one child and a backyard by another!) and Miss Bliss used some to decorate the cake so beautifully. Not a good photo but it did look impressive and I'm pleased that she's following my tradition of using flowers, seeds and homegrown bits rather than sugary, shop bought decorations.

In our home, its not Christmas without loads of traditional biscuits and while this time, there were only four varieties, there were still ALOT! These ones, called Spitzbuben (loose translation = "cheeky boys", don't ask me why!) are made the closest to Christmas as they are the hardest to keep for longer due to our summer weather as opposed to winter in Austria. We made three batches of these - which were finished first because they really are so very more-ish! Here is a recipe in English for you to try.....mine doesn't use lemon rind but the rest is similar. 

Miss Bliss received a gorgeous cookbook from lovely friends, 'Natural Harry' by Harriet Birrell and naturally (haha) she had to try a frozen sweet delight immediately! And oh my, it was divine! The recipes are all plant based - this one is Peppermint Crisp Slice. Once again there were medjool dates and nuts involved but the best part was the mint flavour from the peppermint oil and the smoothness of cashew cream centre and cacao topping......I'm drooling over my laptop just thinking about it!! 

Now its mid January and I'm firmly putting my New Year Actions into place - it only takes 21 days I'm told but if she keeps trying out new delights my willpower is going to be seriously depleted! 

Wish me luck.....Evi

a handmade christmas retrospective

So the Christmas tree has been packed away, all tinsel and fairy lights taken down and the biscuits almost entirely consumed by various visitors and family members. Its been a lovely relaxing after-Christmas-week and a not quite as relaxing first-week-of-the-new-year week! 

I had slated January as my month to relax - to read aloud some long awaited books to the younger children and to lounge on the sofa reading copious piles of interesting books to myself! But alas, I also wrote out a list of goals for 2015 and they seem to have taken precedence over my relaxing….oh well, at least the shed is tidy and I've made inroads into the backlog of to-do lists left over from the Old Year! 

Actually that wasn't what this post was going to be about at all…..what I really wanted to show you was the various handmade gifts we made and received. Way back in July 2011 (I wonder why I wrote a Christmas post in July??)  I explained a bit about our secret person gifting and shared one of our more extravagant handmade gifts. I don't think we've had one quite as marvellous as that one but this year everyone put lots of thought into their make and there were some very pleased recipients. Sometimes its a struggle to find just the right item to create - it has to be within the makers expertise and ability and still be something the recipient will find funny, useful or beautiful. I write about our gifts to remind myself of whats been gifted and also for anyone of you lovely readers that may need some inspiration for your own handmade gifts next year. 

If you are anything like me though, you will have long forgotten reading this by December 2015, so I will endeavour to put a link in my sidebar sometime this year, with all my Christmas posts. Thats the plan anyway!! Now on with the show and tell…...

My Golden Girl was delighted with the metal candleholder that her dad bent and welded for her. He's made a few now and we keep telling I'm he ought to make a whole lot more and sell them.

This one is a person-with-no-spare-time handmade gift! Our boy in Melbourne is busy building up his business but still managed to find a space to do something for his dad on this very fancy flask - the leather has been inscribed with a few words of wisdom using a wood burner. It came complete with an expensive bottle of Laphroaig Whiskey (which tastes like old leather and wood smoke - yuk!)

Son #3, in the party hat down there, is named Djwal, or Dj for short (unusual, I know - he was named after a Tibetan mystic) Now what do you think he wants to be when he grows up? Yep, a DJ!! So one of my almost daughter-in-laws appliquéd this dancing skeleton wall hanging for him. She did such a neat job of the machine appliquéing too! 

Nina had pulled her partner out of the hat, so she had inside information and made a sweet little fishing journal to record all the fish he wished he caught!! She used watercolour paper scraps left over from my journal binding as well as other paper off cuts.

Its fortunate that we have such a range of skills in our family - having a welder father makes it easy to conjure up gifts for men! This camping BBQ plate was welded up by The Dj for Layla's partner Dan. He's an outdoor man and loved it!!

A sweet strawberry dress for the Small Elf, sewn by her mum.

These cushions covers were made entirely from repurposed clothes - I love this! The black was a skirt with those pretty snowflakes along the bottom edge and the red was a large size linen dress. A few passes with the rotary cutter and cutting board, a bit of measuring and sewing and two eye popping cushions appeared. This one would have to be my fave end result - you know how I love to reuse old things and these covers looked standout special!

Theres a large blackwood (acacia genus) log that one of the boys brought home a few years ago and is now nicely seasoned ….. and oh boy, its had pieces sawn off for gifts for the last three Christmases! There was a chopping board one year, a heavy duty coat rack last year, a smaller hanger this year and now a picture frame/candle holder! This photo doesn't do it justice but it does look pretty flash!

And I couldn't let Christmas go by without a little bit of arty goodness, so my secret person (who was our lovely tall, dark and handsome son #2) received my very first painting on canvas. Wow, it took me ages, working on a tiny bit here and there, day after day and although I'm happy with the result, I'm looking forward to gaining more expertise in the large scale painting department. He was happy and will hang it in the bedroom in his new house….. and he's already commissioned another one for the lounge room!

So, theres another Christmas worth of hand made goodness. We all decided that even though most of us leave the making until the very last week, it is the best part of the whole celebration…… well, except the food of course!! The secrecy of trying to gain information without giving away who your secret person is, the anticipation of seeing how your gift is received and even the stress of finding just the right item to create and gift, is all quite exhilarating! I would encourage anyone to do the same!!
I think I've said all I need to say about Christmas now and I'll get back to other more useful and maybe more mundane topics in my next posts. 

Did you get any handmade delights this year?

pfeffernüsse biscuit recipe

So. I had great thoughts of posting a few of our favourite Christmas biscuit recipes. Now its only two days before the Big Celebration and I haven't posted any yet. Ahem. My days are filled with baking, cleaning, decorating, organising, shopping (yes, I'm still doing that) and a myriad of other now or never must do's. But truly, these tasty little flavour bumps are worth putting aside a bit of time for, amongst all the busyness of this busiest of seasons. 

I make LOTS of these spicy biscuits every year - just before Christmas - and they should keep for up to a month if you store them in a tin in a cool place. Of course, in my house there are very rarely never any left after about two weeks so I can't truly verify if they are good for a month, so please use your discretion!   

Pfeffernüsse

4 eggs

400gm caster sugar

100gm almond meal

1 heaped tablespoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground cardamon 

1/2 teaspoon grated nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon ground white pepper

Zest of 1 lemon, finely grated

500gm plain flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

******

For the glaze

100 gm icing sugar

Lemon juice

*Mix sifted icing sugar with enough lemon juice to make a thickened cream-like mixture. Add more lemon juice if you want thinner icing.

******

Whip the eggs and sugar until light and frothy.

Add almond meal, spices and lemon zest. Stir.

Sift flour and baking powder into the egg/spice mixture, mix until smooth. 

Give the dough a light kneading in the bowl until it looks smooth. You may need to add a little more flour if its too sticky. 

Take portions of dough (about a cup size amount?) and roll it into long sausage shapes (approx 2.5cm diameter) on a smooth surface. You can see in these photos that I use our plastic covered table! 

Now cut your sweet sausages into 2.5cm lengths and put them on a greased tray….not too close as they do spread a teeny bit. 

Bake at 160C for around 12 - 15 minutes depending on how hot your oven runs. I do mine on 165C (sorry not sure how to get that little degree sign!!) for 13 minutes or so. 

While warm dip the tops into the lemon/icing sugar mixture.

Leave to dry well before storing. 

And thats that! The biscuits will be a bit crunchy but heres a little trick to soften them - just add a quarter of an unpeeled apple into the tin, leave for a few days and the apple helps to moisten and make them chewy. Be sure not to let the apple touch the biscuits though, as they will get a soggy spot!

This recipe makes quite a few biscuits. My family also eat quite a few biscuits over Christmas. I make 4 batches of these, along with 4 batches each of at least 3 other kinds and although I wrap and gift quite a few, there are not many left after New Year. I told you they ate a lot of bikkies but perhaps its because they're all deprived for the rest of the year when I mostly make healthy, sugar free cakes!!

I do hope you give these a try. There are endless variations of this recipe but this is the one that I've settled on and find easy enough to whip up quickly. They are really very moreish and such a special treat!

Dieses feines Gebäck wert ihr schon kennen! Ich backe Pfeffernüsse nur zu Weihnachten und meine Familie ist immer ganz begeistert dabei. Ich hab hier mein Rezept aber sicher habt ihr selber eines und ich muss es nicht übersetzen!  

sharing the love around

Look what someone found in their Advent box this morning….. ;) 

….and they did!! 

advent boxes from last years cards

Well, so much for being well ahead and organised for the pre Christmas rush this year! No, hang on, I am organised but certainly not ahead of schedule as you can see. These lovely glittery little parcels are our advent calendar this year and while the boxes were made by some of my children a month ago, their over-worked mother didn't get any goodies for inside them, until yesterday! Oh and I had to find and print some corny jokes as well! I love them and the children humour me!! 

So this morning was spent filling and adding a bit of bling to 24 little boxes made from old Christmas cards - I wanted to tell you all about this ahead of Advent but good plans often go astray….sigh. And then I wanted to quickly link to a tutorial for making the boxes but it was not to be. I couldn't find a nice and easy one without a lot of pesky measuring - so I enlisted the help of one of the girls and we made our own tute!! 

Tutorial - how to make recycled Advent boxes!! 

I won't go into detail about materials needed (see above) 

Cut the card in half along the spine. On the writing part of the card, make a mark approximately 5mm along the long edge and a bit more, maybe 8mm,  along the shorter edge and cut along the lines to make it smaller. This is to enable the base of the box to fit into the lid. 

Measure carefully from corner to corner and draw a line to make a cross on both cards. 

Now fold both short sides so that the edge meets up with the centre of the cross. 

Do the same with the long edges. 

Now cut along the fold on all the short sides of the card (not the short fold) until you get to the line. 

Im not going to try and explain this next bit because I'm sure you should be able to see whats going on in the photo but there is a bit of folding along previous folds as well as another new fold over the top at the ends. 

Do the same with the lid section.

We staple the sides with the sharp bits facing in (yes, I know this lid is not done like that….. what can I say?…. a kid made it!) but you could try gluing if you don't like staples. 

And viola! a nice neat little container to put all sorts of deliciousness in! (and if you are one of my younger children, please don't look at any further pics or you won't get a surprise!) 

We have a very cheap little op shop here in the village and they have lots of Christmassy stuff for sale from November on, so I was fortunate enough to find lots of rolls of half used glittery packing type ribbon to tie this lot up with. Do excuse the very stained and ratty tablecloth that is being held up here by two unwilling helpers just out of the picture - I only noticed what they'd used when I put the pics on the computer.

So there you have a nice easy way to make little boxes. Years ago we used to make them to hold all sorts of little hand made gifts for friends, using old birthday cards but sadly, children grow up and old ways are forgotten. Now they want to buy gifts!

I hope you give these a try with any little people in your life!

Here is last years Advent wreath and here you will find the one from the year before.

And when I went a bit further back into the archives, I found this one as well (with a very much younger Fairy!)

I'm linking this to Creative Friday at Natural Suburbia (even though its Monday!!)

And I've also linked to Artist Trading Post Exchange where you will find other great ideas for recycling for Christmas, and at Frontier Dreams with Keep Calm Craft On.


Ich bin schon wieder spät mit unser Advent Kalender. Die Kinder haben schon seit längere zeit die kleine schachteln gebastelt aber erst heute Kamm ich dazu sie aufzufüllen! Von alte Weihnachtskarten, sie sind sehr schnell zum herstellen und immer sehr beliebt von groß und klein! 

year end and year beginning

                          

Im not sure now, where Christmas and New Year went - they both passed in a sea of tinsel, family and biscuits! Every year the big day (evening for us) creeps up quickly, is immensely enjoyed by all and then is just as quickly superseded by New Year and all the resolutions, intentions and new beginnings that come with it. 

We baked copious quantities of sugary, spicy Austrian biscuits, devoured many pre-Christmas meals with children and their partners as they slowly trickled in from faraway places, decked the half finished extension halls with tinsel, trinkets and all manner of fairy lights and tried desperately to finish off last minute hand made gifts. 

I don't know why this is so, year after year. Last year, we picked names out of my old straw gardening hat way back in August and still, at least half of us were madly sewing, woodworking or painting on the very last day! We have been picking names earlier and earlier for the last few Christmas's and for this year we have been really early….. it's already done!! Yes, we all have the name of our secret Christmas person tucked neatly away in our wallets and purses (well, ok, the younger set have saved theirs into various digital devices and I have mine in my purse) so dare I hope that there won't be a mad scramble???

As always though, Christmas Eve was beautiful and relaxed. There is of course the added bonus of having the Small Elf amongst us, which certainly makes it all more exciting.
I even managed to make a couple of new felt tree ornaments which I like to do each year. 

Later there was dancing!! Yes. An impromptu relearning of Tina Turners Nutbush City Limits dance routine. Do you remember it? I sort of did and we all practised and sweated and laughed till we could dance a whole song without mucking up! Oh and the Macarena too. Lots of fun!!! 

Now it's the new year and I am just beginning to feel like I've surfaced from a long period of 'unusual activities'. Still not quite the usual as we don't have any lesson times to anchor the day but nice and relaxed none the less. I'm about to start on a new patchwork quilt, I've written in my 2014 planner, the Best Man and I have had many planning discussions, the overgrown garden is calling my name and most of the visiting children have returned to their own homes. 

It was a wonderful, busy, family Christmas. 

As it should be.

Wishing you all a very relaxed and happy 2014.
And may all your wishes come to fruition. 

christmas cordial

Living in Tasmania means that we get to emulate many of the culinary efforts of times past. That may not be strictly true of course, but I seem to make and create a whole lot more 'old fashioned' food and drink than I did when living in the warmth of NSW. Last years rhubarb champagne is an example, as is the elderflower champagne we made last year too. Dj made both (and enjoyed both!) along with the family. I still don't know if they have any alcohol content but I'm happy to pretend there's none!!

This year he has made elderflower cordial due to a shortage of plastic fizzy drink bottles. We never drink those and never think to start asking friends to collect them for us early enough to make a batch for the festive season. Oh well, a change is good and we did have various glass bottles that were just right for cordial. Perhaps it looks like we give the fizzy's a miss and drink only vodka and wine, but truly that is not the case at all.... really!!

We used Tanya's great recipe which you can find here and although it's a bit cloudier and darker in colour than hers, the Dj assures me it's delicious! It certainly looked very pretty with the late afternoon sun streaming through the window.

Today we started on the first four batches of the mountains of biscuits we bake each year. Lebkuchenherzen (gingerbread hearts) coated in chocolate are another of those things that I've only been making since we moved to Tassie.... chocolate biscuits in 40˚ heat?? No way!
Tomorrow they will be rolled, cut out, baked and coated with delicious chocolate and I'll be photographing the process to share.


Unser Dj hatt wieder etwas gutes für uns zu Weihnachten gemacht. Holunderblüten Sirup, goldener süsser Saft zum trinken mit prickelnden Wasser. Oder vielleicht für mich ein Hugo!!
Wir haben aber viele Blüten auf denn baum gelassen dammit wir auch Holunderbeere haben im Herbst.
Heute sind endlich die ersten Keks entstanden, Lebkuchenherzen, weil es ist nicht mehr lang bis das Christkindlein kommt!